A Light at the End of the Tunnel

I have a little student. We'll call her Arlene (not her real name). She moved here a year ago from El Salvador. She came from a relatively sheltered environment and a very small K-8 school. El Salvador is a war zone. There is near-constant fighting between the government, the drug lords, and the insurgents who support the drug lords. It is not a safe place for children. She was very sheltered by her parents who sought to keep her from being exposed to the danger all around her. Nevertheless, Arlene is a very good girl who has seen some very bad things.
Her first weeks here she was not used to the freedom that American teenagers have. She was scared to walk from one side of our big school to the other. If you were to wander around like that out in the open in El Salvador you could easily get shot or kidnapped. She spent the first two weeks crying in my office because she was too scared to go out in the halls without an adult escorting her.
She spent the entire duration of her 7th grade year clinging to anything that was familiar, including her Disney Princesses backpack and notebook. She made some good friends who take care of her and she learned how to maneuver the school freely without someone helping her. She did not learn much English.
We practiced, drilled, tested, revised, corrected, and read one-on-one ALL YEAR LONG. By the end of the year, she could understand basic instructions and respond accordingly. That was about it.
I have her again this year in 8th grade. She started off the year still painfully shy, but much more confident and capable than last year. She's been working with one-on-one mentors in 2 or 3 of her classes. She has more friends. I helped her transfer into the choir class in December so she could have some sort of language-oriented elective.  Still little to no progress with the English, though.
Today she had a major breakthrough. We've been practicing persuasive writing to help the kids prepare for an upcoming district writing assessment. I helped them write a rough draft Monday. Tuesday we typed it. Today I assigned them the same thing, only with a different writing prompt and no assistance. I just told them to write it like they had written their last essay, only with details pertinent to the new assignment.
Arlene cranked it out. Fast. In 5 minutes she'd written a fairly decent essay, completely in English, no translation necessary. She turned it in. It scored "Intermediate." This is a first. She's never EVER written anything for me in English the first time (usually she writes it in Spanish and translates it). She's never scored "Intermediate" on anything. She's never completed an assignment the first time with no help from me.
We both cried a little bit today. They were tears of joy.
This, btw, is why I wake up at 6:30 every morning and come to work.